Chapter 4.

Landscapes of ploughed earth and desiccated spruce trees fenced off by high walls and electric wire rolled past the windows of the train as Madeline looked out, as she had done for the previous half an hour since setting off. Eamon looked on, troubled. She almost seemed to expect the train to turn around and head back towards District 9 at any moment.

Eamon was shaken out of his thoughts by the clang of a silver platter dropping onto the table behind them.

"Macarons!" cried Vivian excitedly. "My favourite. You two eat something already, you look dead on your feet."

Brilliant choice of words, thought Eamon.

The train was expected to take little less than a full day to pick up the tributes from the remaining Districts, before arriving at the Capitol. More than enough time to take in the ridiculous indulgences of the train car. Eamon looked over at Nott, who was lying on the magenta-coloured lounge in front of the TV. He coughed to get his attention and Nott looked up at him, still with the irritable demeanour he had when they had left. Eamon jerked his head in Madeline's direction and Nott sighed, his expression softening slightly.

Nott walked over to Madeline and knelt beside her talking in a low voice that Eamon couldn't overhear. Whilst he was doing that, Eamon turned back to Vivian, taking one of the sweets she was offering more out of politeness than anything.

"So, what's our schedule for all of this?" he asked.

"Schedule?" she frowned.

"Yeah. You know, when we arrive in the Capitol, the Tribute Parade, the training, and all that."

"Oh. So sorry, most tributes don't generally ask those kinds of questions straight away. They're more like…" she trailed off, gesturing at Madeline, who was still talking to Nott in hushed whispers.

"Anyway," she carried on. "You'll get your measurements taken for the Tribute parade shortly. We'll arrive at the Capitol shortly after breakfast tomorrow morning, which gives us enough time to get settled in the Tribute Center before the big parade later that night. Umm…. what happens next? Oh, of course! Silly Viv. You'll get three days of training and at the end of that you'll be scored on your abilities, before having the traditional night-before interview with the ever-lovely Florence Whittaker. I'm a big fan of hers," she finished, stammering slightly.

"And… then the Games, right?"

"Oh, yes of course," as if she'd momentarily forgotten about that small detail in her admiration of Florence Whittaker.

He took a bite of the sunshine-coloured biscuit. As expected it was delicious, if overly sweet for his tastes. At that moment, Nott and Madeline walked over and it was clear he'd done something right.

"Alright, let's get down to business," began Nott brusquely, rubbing his hands together. "I've been teaching Eamon everything I know about the Games for years, so together we're going to focus all our efforts on getting you up to speed. He's even agreed to be your ally for all of this."

Eamon nodded, happy that on some level, Nott was able to cooperate with him on this. "First things first Madeline, what do you know about the Hunger Games?"

"Just that twenty-four kids go kill each other in an arena and that one survives," she mumbled.

Nott chuckled slightly, "Well that's basically the gist of it. But there are many other subtleties to the games, and those ultimately matter just as much as whether you can fight well. Things like attracting sponsors, planning two to three steps ahead of your opponents, the sorts of hazards you're likely to find in the arena, and so on. We'll get to all of that later, but for right now I think it'll be easier that I just show you rather than tell you."

He pulled a bedazzled disc cover out from his coat pocket and Eamon instantly knew where he was going with this. In shining gold letters, the disc read, "REVIEW OF THE 54TH ANNUAL HUNGER GAMES" with a faded-out picture of a younger Nott Watson's face just below.

"Now, Eamon's watched this about a thousand times. I haven't watched it once, and I don't intend to change that today."

He put the disc into the side of the TV before heading into the other carriage where all their separate bedrooms and bathroom were located. Vivian busied herself over getting them some drinks from the bar, leaving Eamon and Madeline on the lounge to play the video.

"You're going to want to look away, I know," he said to her. "My advice: don't. You need to see what it is you're up against."

"Why would you watch this so many times?" she asked abruptly. She'd known Eamon for years and looked up to him in a way. He never seemed the kind of person who'd enjoy something like this.

Eamon shrugged, "Hints and strategies mostly."

"But there's... tonnes of death and stuff, right? How do you get past that?"

"Yeah it doesn't get any easier, I'll admit. But you have to realise nothing about what we're in is easy. Or fair for that matter."

The screen lit up with the same promotional video they'd seen in the Reaping. Even though it was fourteen years ago, President Bishop's voice rang out exactly the same to his present-day voice it was uncanny.

"I think we can skip this bit," said Eamon fast-forwarding through.

He jumped forward to the Reaping, showing the tributes from all 12 Districts. The dirty-blonde haired boy from District 9, oddly enough, showed no emotion whatsoever at being Reaped, but it was clear that the gears inside his head were running at peak efficiency.

The video then jumped to the Tribute Parade.

"What… what am I looking at?" asked a puzzled Madeline.

"This is the Tribute Parade," explained Eamon. "Stylists dress each pair of tributes up in outlandish outfits designed to represent their District and parade us through the main boulevard of the Capitol. It's the first chance for sponsors - people who help us in the Games - to see the Tributes."

Eamon felt it was a big stretch however to associate District 9 with the bizarre tribal garments that Nott and his female counterpart were sporting.

"That sounds disgusting."

"Oh incredibly. They're pigs in the Capitol."

Eamon was glad Vivian hadn't overheard that.

"Umm…. what on Earth is Nott doing?" asked Madeline suddenly.

She asks a lot of questions. Good sign, he thought.

Unlike the rest of the tributes who were simply smiling and waving in their chariots, Nott had jumped over the front bar of his own and was sat perched on the edge precariously, dangling his feet over the front with a playfully innocent expression.

"He's attracting attention and doing a damn good job of it."

Eamon was right; fingers pointed and gasps from all around the eccentric crowd were focused on Nott. It even elicited a curious look from an otherwise normally stoic President Bishop as they moved past the Presidential Booth at the end of the boulevard.

"So, does everyone do stuff like that? Most of the other tributes were just waving and looking sad," asked Madeline.

Vivian answered instead, waltzing over to place two tall glasses of sparkling water in front of them.

"People have tried my dear, but alas, nowadays tributes don't really go for that anymore. It's a risky strategy, you see."

"How so?"

"Well believe it or not, our dear friend Nott was the first tribute to attempt such… theatrics with the Capitol public. Because no-one had ever seen such a thing, unsurprisingly he garnered a lot of favour with sponsors. Naturally, tributes in following years attempted similar stunts; sometimes they worked fabulously and sometimes they had the opposite effect, dissuading sponsors."

Eamon anticipated Madeline's next question just as she'd opened her mouth, "Sponsors are fickle. Trying to predict their tastes is like trying to predict the weather."

He made an effort to avoid generalising the entire public of the Capitol in front of Vivian. Despite this, she still flinched.

"I wouldn't put it quite so crudely, but yes, Eamon is somewhat accurate in his assessment. Hence why tributes don't do it anymore and why I don't recommend either of you attempting such actions."

The video then sped through a quick montage of the tributes training, before receiving their scores.

Madeline couldn't help but notice six of the stronger, more confident tributes spending an awful lot of time together, "They're from Districts 1, 2 and 4, aren't they?"

"Yup. Good spot. They're Career tributes. They train their whole lives and then volunteer, vying for fame and fortune by winning the Games. They band together with skill and numbers to overwhelm the rest of the Tributes before turning on each other. That's how they win most years. I've been training with Nott for so long just to be ready for them. To figure out how to break them."

"Doesn't that make you a Career tribute as well, then?"

Eamon was very taken aback by this. He'd never really considered what he'd been doing for years comparable to that of the other Careers.

"I... well, I mean… it's similar… but not quite…"

He was rescued from his stammering by the sight on Nott receiving a training score of 9 out of a possible 12.

"That kind of score puts him pretty much on par with the Careers."

Eamon always wondered how Nott knew to do what he did. Where did he get the experience, the knowledge, the ideas? He'd asked several times but could seemingly never get a straight answer. Finally, the video faded to white.

"Time for the main event."

"Aren't the night-before interviews on this disc?" piped up Vivian.

"No, unfortunately. It's a shame, I always wanted to see how he handled those. Could've been helpful."

"I think it's best that you don't know," said Vivian clearly blushing, despite her heavy makeup. "Nott had a certain… controversial charisma, let's just put it that way."

Both Eamon and Madeline looked at her curiously, trying to deduce what she meant. But at that moment, the video opened onto the 54th Annual Hunger Games.

Strange lights twinkled through a white mist that blanketed the ground and trees. Twenty-four tributes in thickly padded snowsuits stood in a semi-circle around… a large gingerbread house? Festively decorated pine trees were scattered every which way beyond the Cornucopia and the outlines of white-capped mountains were barely visible on the horizon through the heavy sheet of winter. A small village of cosy looking houses adorned with tinsel and candy canes lay to the south-west, a large frozen lake to the north-west, and a field of happy-looking snowmen to the south-east.

A large neon countdown hung above the Cornucopia with an assortment of silver weapons, backpacks, crates, and tools scattered around and inside the sweet-looking structure. Madeline tensed up as the countdown reached 10 seconds remaining.

A siren blared, and the tributes jumped off their pedestals, with most making their way towards the Cornucopia. Several slipped on the frost-covered ground and by the time they could recover, the rest had made it to the cache of supplies. The Careers played their hand well in efficiently securing the majority of the Cornucopia's supplies before proceeding to slaughter the stragglers. One by one, children collapsed under their might, staining the snow scarlet. Cannons sounded, and a voice boomed over the arena to signify the death of each one. In the onslaught and pandemonium, Nott had acquired a heavy-looking, double-sided axe and a backpack before sprinting to the north-east. One of the male Careers was killed by a girl from District 10, whom the rest of the group set about hunting after when the chaos subsided. Bodies littered the ground around the Cornucopia and the substance decorating it could have easily been mistaken for raspberry jam.

Ten of the tributes died in the Bloodbath and another five by nightfall including, some of whom died from basic lack of shelter and warmth. After tracking and killing the District 10 girl, the Careers attempted to regroup back at the Cornucopia but found its protection against the elements to be inadequate. They gathered what they could of their supplies and headed south, to the village they had chased the girl to earlier.

One boy had found himself lost in the field of snowmen and when the moon rose, the wind roared, and visibility became all the worse. But that was far from his biggest problem.

"Wait… what the hell is that?!" whispered a terrified Madeline.

Her voice startled Eamon, as she'd been watching the video in almost a trance-like state the entire time. As it was, despite watching the Games many times, this scene never failed to put Eamon on edge.

Unseen through the white night, several of the snowmen were no longer standing in the positions they were seemingly anchored to. In fact, they were noticeably closer to the boy, but just as innocuous. A few seconds passed and again, the snowmen were just feet away, despite not appearing to be mobile. A blanket of snow swept across the screen and a bloodcurdling scream pierced the night. When it returned to normal, the boy was lying in a pool of his blood, his voice gurgling; his throat had been ripped out. The snowmen were once again in their original positions, looking happy as ever, but the gumdrops that made up their mouths had all mysteriously turned red.

"Frostbytes," explained Eamon shakily. "Every Games there are one or two varieties of genetically mutated monstrosities designed to kill us in the most horrifying ways imaginable. Frostbytes were the mutations used that year."

Madeline's face had turned the colour of snow.

Nott, in the meantime, had headed to the pine forest, and had used his axe well. He felled trees and piled them together to protect him from the wind and eyes of other tributes, as well as making a fire. He helped himself to some food delivered by several sponsors already before setting about making a trap. He removed a string of the festive lights decorating a nearby tree, before taking his axe to a nearby circle of trees. He cut about three quarters of the way through the trunks so that they were only just still standing. He then punctured each one of the lights so that they would no longer glow and tied the rope around and through each of the gouges in the trees, before covering up the marks of his creation with snow. He then lie in wait, holding the end of the rope tightly.

His patience was rewarded eventually when the District 8 male innocently wandered into his web. Pulling on the rope as tightly as possible, the trees made a resounding crack, falling and crushing the boy with no hope of escape. Nott lifted the rolled the heavy pine trunk over to see the boy's mangled body, taking any supplies he had before respectfully closing his eyes.

Meanwhile in the village, several timed explosions had gone off from colourfully wrapped gifts, killing one of the Careers and two other tributes nearby. By the end of the second day, only five tributes remained: Nott and the four-strong Career pack, who had resorted to the safer yet much less elementally-friendly shelter of the Cornucopia, hoping for Nott to die naturally before they turned on each other.

Nott had far from given up however, and was over by the frozen lake, thoroughly testing out the thickness of the ice. It was barely thick enough to stand on. After an hour of investigating, he left for the Cornucopia satisfied. When he got back to within sight of the gingerbread structure, the Careers spotted him, and with a shout immediately set after him. With enough of a head start, Nott pretended to be stumbling, afraid and dragging his axe behind as though he was fatigued; he was very convincing.

One Career fired off an arrow, but the harsh gust blew it several meters to the right. If they wanted him dead, they'd have to get up close and personal. Nott made it to the back to the lake, making sure not to lose his balance on the frosty footing. He still dragged his axe behind him as he ran, with the cracking of the ice barely audible over the wind. As he got further out, he would occasionally slightly lift the axe before dropping it with a thud. The Career pack hesitated before chasing him onto the ice, unaware of the fractured surface he'd left behind.

Almost at the other side, he heard the tell-tale sound in the distance behind him. Securing his footing on solid land, he looked back and recoiled. Unable to take the weight of all four of them, a large hole in the ice had formed underneath them, plunging them into the arctic waters. Like rats they scrabbled over one another, not caring who died so long as they had an extra chance. But they were a long way from shore with the ice offering no purchase. Nott looked on sadly from afar as they all slowly died from extreme hypothermia, before being crowned the winner of the 54th Hunger Games.

Eamon turned the TV off and looked at Madeline.

"So, what do you think?"